French utility Veolia has entered an agreement with Uniper to acquire a 430MW gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Hungary.

The facility, which Uniper owns through its local entity, Uniper Hungary Energetikai, will be transferred to Veolia Invest Hungary, a subsidiary of Veolia.

The companies did not reveal the financial details of the transaction.

Operational since 2011, the power plant is situated in Gönyű in the north-west of the country.

Following the acquisition, Veolia's portfolio will have 2.4GW of capacity, sufficient to meet the energy needs of 2.6 million people.

Veolia CEO Estelle Brachlianoff stated: “This agreement is right in line with our ambitions to develop flexibility capacities, an essential complement to the stability of the European power grid.

“As a long-standing player in the Hungarian energy market, we are delighted to be able to widen our footprint in order to further contribute to reinforcing the resilience of the local power system.”

After a stabilisation plan for Uniper was approved by the EU Commission in December 2022, the business was mandated to comply with several rulings. One of these was selling the Hungarian asset to comply with EU state assistance requirements.

Regulatory approvals for the sale will be secured in the second half of 2024.

Uniper had announced the permanent shutdown of its 875MW Heyden 4 hard coal-fired power plant in the town of Petershagen in Minden, Germany, by the end of September 2024 as part of Germany’s plan to lower emissions.

However, the plant came back online in August 2022 to address the energy crisis, when an ordinance enabled it to generate electricity.